Flames And Dangling Wire

On a highway over the marshland.
Off to one side, the smoke of different fires in a row,
like fingers spread and dragged to smudge:
it is an always-burning dump.

Behind us, the city
driven like stakes into the earth.
A waterbird lifts above this swamp
as a turtle moves on the Galapogas shore.

We turn off down a gravel road,
approaching the dump. All the air wobbles
in some cheap mirror
There is fog over the hot sune.

Now the distant buildings are stencilled in the smoke.
And we come to a landscape of tin cans, of cars like skulls,
that is rolling in its sand dune shapes.

Amongst these cast grey plastic sheets of heat,
shadowy figures
who seem engaged in identifying the dead - 
they are the attendants, in overalls and goggles,

forking over rubbish on the dampened fires.
A sour smoke
is hauled out everywhere,
thin, like rope. And there are others moving - 
scavengers.

As in hell the devils
might pick about through our souls, for vestiges
of appetite
with which to stimulate themselves,

so these figures
seem to wander, disconsolate, with an eternity in which to turn up
some perculiar sensation.

We get out and move about also.
The smell is huge,
blasting the mouth dry:
the tons of rotten newspaper, and great cuds of cloth.....

And standing where i see the mrage of the city
I realize I am in the future.
This is how it sall be after man have gone.
It will be made of things that worked.

A labourer hoists an unidentifiable mulch
on his fork, throws it in the flame:
something flaps
like the rag held up in 'The Raft of the Medusa'.

We approach another, through the smoke,
and for a moment he seems that demon with the long
barge pole.
 - It is a man, wiping his eyes.
Someone who worked here would have to weep,

and so we speak. The rims beneath his eyes are wet
as an oyster, and red.
Knowing all that he does about us,
how can he avoid a hatred of men?

Going on, I notice an old radio, that spills 
its dangling wire - 
and i realize that somewhere the voices it recieved
are still travelling,

skidding away riddles around the arc of the universe;
and with them, the horse-laughs, and the Chopin
which was the sound of the curtains lifting,
one time, to coast of light.

The concepts of journey that are portrayed in the poem, ‘Flames and Dangling Wire’ by Robert Gray is that journeys have the ability to expand a person’s and societies understanding and appreciation for their environment. The poem perceives towards the reader that indulging into a reflection of the changes that seem insignificant to our world, actually represent that state and path that the society is leading into.

One of the main techniques that Robert Gray uses in many of his poems, is simile. The line,’ And we come to a landscape of tin cans, of cars like skulls’, evokes the reader to understand the conveyance of the real perspective of the world. The persona’s physical journey into the wasteland cultivates the reader to interpret the physicality of the ruins of cars, into skulls, associated as dead material. Robert Gray successful establishes that the modern way of living will one day, consume society itself, and understanding the constant changes will have consequences.

Another method through the use of technique that Gray has used to warn readers of the consequences of changes is through allusions, which makes reference to texts. In the line, ‘the raft of the Medusa’ is referring to a famous painting by Gericault. The Raft of Medusa portrays a visual representation of dying survivors of a shipwreck, who have resulted into cannibalism due to the hardships, emotionally and physically. The corruption and disrespect towards the human body represented in this painting, is a representative form of the human race as a whole, consuming themselves, due to the leniency of major materialism. Not only those this show the inevitable demise of the human race and the environment itself, it demonstrates the slight yet constant changes to the lifestyle of many show the journey towards the expiration of humans.

Both these techniques convey that the simple journey that many people normally take provide us with a chance to see the change within society, which foreshadows the path this society is taking and that we, as human should be able to understand and learn from the changes.